Archives for category: Education Reform
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New York: Some Districts Punished Students Who Joined the Walk Out

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
38

 

This just in from Long Island parent leader Jeannette Deutermann, who spent the day dealing with issues related to the National Student Walkout to protest gun violence:

 

“Several LI districts suspended students for walking out, and several more blocked the exits so students could not leave. Two even scheduled “lockout” drills at 10 am and did not lift the lockout until 10:17. For the past two days I’ve been working with Nassau and Suffolk ACLU to get these kids and their parents help with lifting the suspensions. A few districts changed today and lifted consequences. Some still have not.

“Here’s the worst case- a girl from Copaigue was blocked from leaving with other classmates. The admin then warned students to clear the hall or face suspension. She and 3 classmates did not and were suspended. She is in the school play which is performing TONIGHT, and is not allowed to perform. There is a show tomorrow and Saturday. I’m still trying to get her punishment lifted.”

What a disgrace!

Categories Education Reform

Farewell to Facebook!

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2018 //
53

 

I have not been on Facebook for a few years. Friends told me I was limiting the reach of the blog because I was not on FB. So I reactivated my account and opened a new one, one for the blog, the other for family and close friends. But then my partner got hacked on Facebook and weird messages went out far and wide.

I will miss hearing from friends on FB, but I’m done. I’m closing both my accounts.

Adios, Facebook. I hardly knew ye.

Categories Education Reform

St. Joseph College in New York Has a Wonderful New President

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2018 //
6

 

I was offline most of today. I attended the formal installation of the eighth president of St. Joseph College, located in Brooklyn and Patchogue, New York. The College was founded 101 years ago by the Sisters of St. Joseph. I was there because my spouse is a graduate of the College and a member of the Board of Trustees. Over the years, I have come to know many other alums and many of the Sisters, including Sister Elizabeth Hill, who was President of the College for many years. She is a tiny woman with a huge brain and great wit, who was trained as a lawyer and has devoted her life to SJC.

The new president is a rare find. Dr. Donald Boomgaarden is a distinguished musicologist and a concert pianist, with many years of experience as an administrator in Catholic colleges. He was educated by the Jesuits. He embodies a genuine love of the arts, love of learning, a devotion to social justice, and a deep commitment to SJC’s historic tradition of integrity, intellectual and social values, and service to others.

Don Boomgaarden comes to SJC from the University of Scranton, and before that was dean of the college of music and fine arts at Loyola University in New Orleans. He received his BA from Texas State University and his MA and PhD from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. He spent a decade at the University of Salzburg in Austria, studying and performing in the shadow of the world’s greatest classical composers.

He is a performing artist, both as a pianist and a country fiddler. In addition, he is a historian of opera, music aesthetics, and harmonic theory.

What a pleasure to meet a college president who is passionate about liberal education and is a professional musician. In addition, he rides a motorcycle and is a certified yoga instructor!

Everyone is excited about the new president. His energy and enthusiasm for his new assignment are contagious.

SJC has a well-established history of preparing excellent teachers and administrators for the public schools of New York City and Long Island. It is a not-so-hidden gem among the excellent liberal arts colleges of the Northeast.

We are already planning to attend President Boomgaarden’s first concert on the Brooklyn campus, on May 1, when he will perform an all-Chopin program. Can’t wait until he has his first country fiddling concert.

 

Categories Education Reform

NPE Action Warns: Stop This New Federal Voucher Program Now

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2018 //
9

There is a very large Federal program called Impact Aid, designed to provide money to districts affected by federal military facilities, which puts a strain on the budgets of those districts.

Some Republican Senators are proposing to convert Impact Aid into vouchers, removing funding from the “impacted” districts and schools.

NPE Action urges you to write your Senators and other members of Congress and urge them to stop this effort to create a new federal voucher program.

We need you to stand up for public schools. Right now there are two voucher bills, both referred to as the Military Education Savings Accounts Act (HR 5199/ S. 2517) in the House and the Senate. Both bills would siphon off the Impact Aid public school districts get in order to fund an Education Savings Account (ESA) program that would allow some students to use a voucher to attend a private school.

This bill will move quickly so send your email here today.

Here is the link https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-the-latest-federal-voucher-scheme-before-its-too-late

Then please call your Senators and your House Member and let them know you are opposed to HR 5199 and S. 2517.

What is Impact Aid and which schools get it?

Impact Aid helps fund school districts that lose tax revenue because their district includes federally tax-exempt land such as military bases, Native American reservations, national parks or federal housing. As of 2016, Impact Aid provided funding for about 1,300 school districts that in total educate more than 11 million students.

Reducing Impact Aid funding for public schools would strain districts with an already low level of local tax revenue–districts where the community already pays higher taxes because of untaxed federal land.

Would this program help most military families?

No.

Most military families are not wealthy enough to use it. The ESA they would get would be $2,500 although the average price of a year of private elementary school is $7,770, and the average annual cost of private high school is $13,030.

The National Military Family Association has already opposed this proposal to divert Impact Aid from schools that educate military-connected students and the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has expressed similar concerns.

The men and women who serve our country deserve excellent public schools for their children–not schools that are drained of funds by those wealthy enough to afford private school already.

STOP THIS DE VOS-SUPPORTED VOUCHER SCHEME.

Send your email by clicking here. (here is the link https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-the-latest-federal-voucher-scheme-before-its-too-late)

Categories Education Reform

Slate: DeVos Said What Democrats Have Been Saying for Years

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
55

 

Ben Mathis-Lilley, chief news editor for SLATE, points out what should be obvious: everyone is mocking Betsy DeVos’s clueless interview with 60 Minutes, but she echoed what Democrats have been saying for years.

Low-scoring schools should compete to get better, even if they have less funding and larger classes? More money for high-scoring schools? Charters are awesome?

“The bad news for Democrats who found DeVos’ performance appalling is that these principles have been a crucial part of their party’s education policy for 17 years. Broadly speaking, the regime of compelling competition between schools by creating charter-school or school-choice programs and by rewarding those whose students do well on standardized tests was launched at a federal level by the No Child Left Behind Act; the NCLB was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy and passed the Senate in 2001 with 87 votes. When Barack Obama became president, he created the Race to the Top program, which the Washington Post described at the time as a “competition for $4.35 billion in grants” that would “ease limits on charter schools” and “tie teacher pay to student achievement,” i.e. direct extra funds to already-successful schools.”

He points out that Senator Cory Booker addressed DeVos’s pro-voucher, anti-public school organization twice. Yet Booker is shocked, shocked that she has the same views as he does.

”DeVos is not qualified for her job and has more than earned her reputation for cluelessness. But if you gave her a Harvard degree, a history of employment at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs, and a little more public-speaking finesse, nothing DeVos told Lesley Stahl above would have bothered the Democrats who’ve been setting their party’s education policy for going on two decades.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Democrats, Democrats for Education Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top

Julian Vasquez Heilig: KIPP and #NotUs in California

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
5

 

Julian Vasquez Heilig calls BS on KIPP in California, where they are pushing a KIPP charter into a community that doesn’t want them.

The local district, already financially drained by charters, rejected them. The county district rejected them. As in, go away. Now they are applying to the state board, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Charter School lobby.

”KIPP is now trying to insert more schools into the San Francisco Bay Area. But they are having a problem. They ran into some snags in the local authorizing process. First, the local district said that there are now more charters than neighborhood public schools and they are teetering on financial disaster. Their march towards bankruptcy is occurring even with increased funding from the state the past few years because the loss of students to charters has resulted in massive budget shortfalls. After their 3-2 denial by the district, KIPP then went to the county for their second and final attempt at local authorizing. However, that didn’t go well for KIPP because the county wanted assurances that that KIPP would abide by AB 1090, which is a California financial conflict of interest law. KIPP refused to abide by California financial conflict of interest laws. What!?

“Charters talk on and on about how interested they are in transparency and accountability #NotUs. They tell legislators that they are abiding by the law #NotUs. Then they tell other people that the law doesn’t apply to them (See video below) #NotUs. This sort of malfeasance goes on and on because we allow charters to talk out of two sides of their mouth. We also allow the “good” charters to say, “We are good” and of course there is some “bad.” #NotUs Which ultimately provides cover for the entire sector at the expense of transparency and accountability for children, families and taxpayers.”

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Indiana: The Failure of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2018 //
13

 

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette succinctly explains that vouchers have failed in Indiana. 

Taxpayers will shell out $153 million this year for vouchers.

Almost anyone can get a voucher, but not many students or families want them. According to the latest report, cited in the Journal Gazette editorial, only 3.11% of the students in the state use them. Only 4.25% enroll in charters. An additional 4.44% attend private schools without a voucher. In traditional public schools are 88.2%, and no one in the Indiana legislature gives a thought to the overwhelming number in public schools or the damage that vouchers and charters do to them.

The Fort Wayne public schools will lose $19 million. The schools of Indianapolis public schools will lose $20 million. In what universe does it make sense to take away money, teachers, and programs from the vast majority of students to subsidize religious schools for a tiny minority of students?

According to their advocates, vouchers were supposed to “save poor children from failing schools.”

Not true.

“Fewer than 1 percent of the 35,458 voucher recipients qualified for the program this year because he or she lives in a public school district with an F-rated school. But 245 students used vouchers to attend Horizon Christian Academy on North Wells Street, one of about a dozen voucher schools earning an F in 2017.”

Vouchers were supposed to save taxpayers money.

Not true.

”That might be the case if every voucher student would have otherwise attended public school. But the percentage of voucher students who never attended a public school grew to 56.5 percent this year, and there is no evidence the families wouldn’t have chosen a private school even without a voucher.”

Vouchers were supposed to be for low-income families.

Not true.

“About 20 percent of voucher recipients came from households earning more than $75,000 a year. Four percent of voucher students came from households earning more than $100,000 a year in income. The state’s median household income is $52,314 a year.”

Furthermore, voucher schools are not open to all, unlike public schools.

“Some of the faith-based schools limit admission on the basis of religion, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

The voucher advocates claimed that vouchers would raise academic achievement.

Not true.

“Nearly $13 million in voucher money flowed to schools receiving a D or F on state report cards. The Indiana State Board of Education just last week granted a waiver to Ambassador Christian Academy, a “D” school. The state board agreed a majority of students showed academic growth over the last school year, even though the same board proposed new accountability rules for public schools that will not give credit for academic growth.”

In sum, Indiana is squandering many millions of dollars on an ineffective voucher program that benefits few students.

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Hoax, Indiana

Is Mayor Bill de Blasio Turning into Mayor Bloomberg?

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2018 //
47

 

When Bill de Blasio ran for Mayor the first time, he sought my help. We met and spoke candidly. He told me he would strongly support traditional public schools. He said he would oppose the expansion of private charters into public school space. He promised to stop closing schools because of their test scores. His own children went to public schools. He would protect them and end the destructive tactics of Joel Klein, who coldly and cruelly closed schools over the tearful objections of students, parents, and teachers.

I enthusuastically endorsed him. The campaign issued a press release. De Blasio was elected in 2013, and re-elected in 2017. I wanted him to succeed and to support public schools against the privatizers.

He tried to stand up to the charters, but Eva’s billionaire backers rolled out a multi-million dollar TV campaign and donated huge sums to Governor Cuomo and key legislators. That ended de Blasio’s effort to block charter expansion. The legislature gave them a blank check in New York City, allowed them to expand at will, and even required the city to pay their rent in private facilities if it couldn’t provide suitable public space. Now his majority appointees to the city board rubber stamp charter co-locations and expansions.

Although the Mayor and Chancellor Farina have tried to support struggling schools, they have not hesitated to close them when they don’t show test score gains.

At the last meeting of the city’s Board of Education (which Mayor Bloomberg capriciously named the Panel on Education Policy to indicate its insignificance in the new era of mayoral control but which is still called the Board of Education in statute), the Mayor submitted a list of schools to close. Sadly, like Bloomberg, he has closed many schools. Unlike Bloomberg, he does not boast about it. There’s that.

At the last meeting of the Board, onee of the Mayor’s appointees, T. Elzora Cleveland, dissented and another abstained, denying the majority needed to close two of the schools on the Mayor’s list. Cleveland has resigned, and education activists assume she was forced out to make way for a more pliable board member. 

How is this different from Mayor Bloomberg’s tactics?

During the Bloomberg regime, the Mayor ousted three appointees who objected to his wish to end social promotion. The three members worried that no one had devised a plan to help the kids held back. Bloomberg fired them on the spot, and said, in effect, mayoral control means I am in charge and my appointees do as I wish. At the time, the firings were called “the Monday night massacre.”

I strongly oppose closing public schools, especially those that are historic anchors of their community. Several years back, I was on a panel with John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. He said he had traveled to many countries to learn how they dealt with struggling schools. In every country, the Minister of Education said, “If a school is struggling, we send in support.” Dr. Jackson asked, “What do you do if you send support, and the school doesn’t improve?” In every case, the Minister said, “We send in more support.”

The bottom line is that accountability lies with the leadership. If a school is in trouble, it is up to the leadership to help, not punish. They control the resources. They decide whether the school will reduce class sizes and have the staff and programs it needs. Accountability begins at the top.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Closing schools, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, New York City

Indiana: CarolMalaysia Writes a Letter to Senator Todd Young About His Support for Guns

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2018 //
6

Reader CarolMalaysia shares a letter she sent to Indiana Senator Todd Young, to be sure he understands that he has blood on his hands.

She writes:

3/10/2018

Corrupt Senator Young, a hero is in the hospital because of your support for assault weapons. He took 5 bullets to save his classmates in Florida

How many more mass killings are necessary before we ban military type assault weapons and criminalize their possession? I hold you responsible for the injury of this brave child of 15 who was shot 5 times and is still in the hospital.

If the point is it’s a great thrill to go to a shooting range and fire an AR-15, make a special permit for the shooting range owners to provide the AR-15, which the visitor uses and leaves at the shooting range.

Here is Anthony Borges’s story: When a 19 year old gunman raged through a high school in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018 a 15-year-old soccer player named Anthony Borges showed extreme courage.

Anthony, who is of Venezuelan descent, apparently was the last of a group of students rushing into a classroom to seek refuge. He shut the door behind him and frantically tried to lock it, but in an instant the gunman appeared on the other side. Instead of running for cover, Anthony blocked the door to keep the shooter out. He held his ground even as the attacker opened fire.

Asked why he would do that, he replied, “What’s so hard to understand about what I did?”

Shot five times in the legs and torso, Anthony phoned his father to say that he had been wounded. He was rushed to a hospital and survived.

Anthony Borges may not yet be able to walk, but tens of thousands of us will be Marching for him, led by his classmates from Parkland, on March 24 in Washington DC and in places all over the country. Hoosiers are going to show that they do not support corrupt politicians like Senator Todd Young who was bought out by the NRA. [$2,896,732] We want meaningful strict gun legislation.

Senator Todd Young, are you going to pay for this young man’s medical bills? You are personally responsible for all the deaths and injury caused by an assault weapon. What about giving Anthony Borges a scholarship? A moral person in your position would accept what he needs to do.

Corrupt Senator Todd Young’s stance:

I believe the “Assault Weapons Ban” of 1994 was bad legislation that needed to be repealed.”

Source: 2010 House campaign website, toddyoungforcongress.com/ , Nov 2, 2010.

Let’s honor Anthony Borges, not just as a counterpoint to corrupt, bought out politicians who leave children in harm’s way, but as a beacon of courage and selflessness for all of us to follow.

Categories Corruption, Courage, Education Reform, Guns, Indiana

British Educators Decide to Introduce “Risk” into Playgrounds and Schools

By dianeravitch
March 10, 2018 //
34

 

Adter de adds of trying to minimize all risks to children, British educators have decided that some risk is a good thing. 

“Four years ago, for instance, teachers at the Richmond Avenue Primary and Nursery School looked critically around their campus and set about, as one of them put it, “bringing in risk.”

“Out went the plastic playhouses and in came the dicey stuff: stacks of two-by-fours, crates and loose bricks. The schoolyard got a mud pit, a tire swing, log stumps and workbenches with hammers and saws.”

It seems that there can be too much of a good thing.

But then there are lawyers.

Categories Education Reform
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